


For Want of Dreams Fulfilled

by leftofrevolution



Series: For Want Of [3]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place about a year after 'For Want of Eternal Sun.' A direct continuation of 'For Want of Canned Tuna.' Zaheer returns home after training with Tenzin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of Dreams Fulfilled

Her firebending was at its strongest when the sun was highest, so she wasn’t entirely sure whether she heard Zaheer coming or felt his approach by the amount of heat he was emanating when he collapsed less gracefully than usual (but about as gracefully as had become common during the past few months) onto the ground next to where she lay on the patio sofa, nearly sitting on Lychee in the process (who yowled but was quickly appeased; most of the cats didn’t know what to make of Zaheer, but he had somehow discovered just the right place to scratch Lychee under the chin to get him purring within just a few seconds). The sofa shifted slightly as Zaheer leaned back; his breath was deep and even, but it stuttered slightly on occasion, as it only did when he was near exhaustion. Also fairly common, these days.

She didn’t bother opening her eyes as she inquired, sounding more amused than she probably should, “Have fun with Tenzin?”

Zaheer didn’t immediately reply; she nearly looked to see if he had fallen asleep (it had happened often enough before to be a distinct possibility) before he coughed once and murmured, “I am still not convinced he isn’t trying to kill me.” He didn’t sound as unhappy as he should have about the prospect.

She slit her left eye open to get a look at him. He had cut his hair short in deference to the heat, but he had still managed to sweat enough it was causing his hair to stick up in unruly spikes, his shirt discolored in the way it became when he had managed to sweat it straight through but the heat had evaporated away everything but the salt. He also had the beginnings of a very impressive black eye and there were distinct signs of friction where it looked like he had managed to skid across the ground for several yards on his shoulder.

She would have worried if Zaheer had seemed troubled in the least, but even now his expression was peaceful. Still, “He can’t be working all of his students like this.” Tenzin had (surprisingly, knowing how stiff the man could be) bowed to the necessity of training the new airbenders in Zaofu while Baatar fixed the damage done to the Northern Air Temple by the Earth Queen’s forces. P’Li suspected this was in great part because Suyin was currently refusing to let her daughter out of her sight and probably would have withdrawn Zaofu’s support of the temple’s rebuilding efforts if Tenzin had tried to push her on the issue, if it wasn’t due to everyone’s very legitimate concerns about loyalists to the old monarch targeting the new airbenders as a vulnerable point for Zaofu’s leadership and allies.

P’Li wasn’t sure if Tenzin also relenting enough to invite Zaheer to the airbending training was more or less unexpected. On one hand, it was due to Zaheer that most of the airbenders had been recovered at all, and Kai and Opal had certainly pushed for his inclusion after what had apparently been extreme airbender bonding during those few weeks while they were all under the Earth Queen’s control. On the other hand, Tenzin had made it very clear he remembered every detail of their fight at the South Pole thirteen years ago and didn’t trust their motives now, but somehow that had still contributed to the first hand, because putting Zaheer through the wringer for eight-plus hours a day meant Tenzin could keep an eye on him. And apparently beat on him to his heart’s content, which had to be cathartic for all the Air Nomads’ talk of nonviolence.

Zaheer really should have minded more, in her opinion, but somehow he still hadn’t gotten over the fact that he was being trained, in airbending, by the world’s only living airbending master (alright, there were technically two now, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to taken an eleven-year-old seriously). His willingness to take whatever Tenzin dished out occasionally seemed more than a little masochistic, and she had met enough of the other airbending students to know that at best one or two of them had a fraction of Zaheer’s fervor; she doubted Tenzin would have any students left if they were all subject to anything like Zaheer’s training regime.

Still, Zaheer had to think about it for a few moments before he shook his head. “Jinora has taken on most of the students; Tenzin is just overseeing my training as well as Kai, Opal, Ikki, and Meelo’s for now, with personalized training schedules for each of us. I believe the initial training period before the Earth Queen attacked the Northern Air Temple did not go smoothly, and Kai mentioned that Jinora talked to Tenzin about adapting everyone’s training to suit their temperaments and skill levels once the situation with Hou-Ting was taken care of.”

She didn’t bother restraining a smirk as she responded dryly, “That is a very delicate way of putting ‘After we killed the Earth Queen, Jinora yelled at her father about overworking everyone and they decided it was best for everyone if he just focused on training the talented people,’ dear. And do you mean to tell me that Ikki and Meelo return to their mother every evening looking like they’ve been stepped on by an air bison as well?”

“Everyone else I listed is a child,” Zaheer said, which was evasive as well as untrue—Opal, as far as P’Li could tell, was an adult, albeit a young one—“and Tenzin-”

“Needs to beat you up periodically to reassure himself he can still take you, under the guise of sparring.”

That actually caused Zaheer to grin, which just let her get a good look at the fact that some of his teeth were visibly bloody (although fortunately all still present). “I think he’s finding it less reassuring all the time; I knocked him down twice today.”

“Does _he_ look like he’s been stepped on by his air bison?”

 _That_ actually managed to elicit a laugh. “I didn’t say I _won_.”

“Give yourself a year.” If she had been talking to anyone but Zaheer, it would have been nothing but ego-stroking; Tenzin had been ordained as an airbending master by his father for good reason, and that had been well over thirty years ago. However, she had actually attended a few of her love’s training sessions, and she knew enough about bending to recognize what was frankly terrifyingly rapid progress. Zaheer was, to put not at all a fine point on it, an airbending prodigy, each form and technique coming to him as easily as… well, breathing. It had taken less than a month after the airbenders had started up in Zaofu for Tenzin to declare that Zaheer wasn’t allowed to spar with anyone but himself, and even the rare times P’Li had watched Tenzin oversee Zaheer’s training, she had seen the airbending master’s furrow between his eyes, looking like he didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried by the rate of his most gifted student’s growth.

Zaheer’s (for him) incessant sucking up probably alleviated at least a few of Tenzin’s concerns, but Zaheer was still well on track to clean his teacher’s clock within only two years of Harmonic Convergence, and that had to rub the man wrong even if he wasn’t anxious about the four of them going off and murdering the Fire Lord on a whim.

Tenzin’s worries were unfounded, at least for the moment—all of them were far too distracted by personal concerns and the restructuring of the Earth Kingdom to spare even a thought for anyone outside its borders for at minimum the next few years—but they still led to him (in P’Li’s opinion) taking out his uneasiness on Zaheer, which were conditions Zaheer ironically thrived under and meant that Zaheer was going to surpass him all the sooner. P’Li could only hope by the time that happened, Tenzin will have sorted out his feelings on the matter and wouldn’t decide to hint to some of his more bloody-minded allies that it would be best for the world if someone assassinated the four of them in their sleep.

Zaheer did not seem to be thinking along those lines himself—though P’Li knew that Ming-Hua at least was being properly cautious and had planned out several escape routes from Zaofu’s main dome since their arrival, only a couple of them involving Aiwei’s secret tunnel—for he just smiled at the compliment and let his legs sprawl out in front of him. “And how are you this afternoon?”

“Unwieldy,” she said, endeavoring not to sigh. She had finally gained enough weight to start throwing her balance off, and though she was aware it could be much worse—Kya had informed her that she literally could not be carrying more gracefully, this far along, and she had avoided morning sickness entirely—it was still a strange feeling. Not _bad_ , far from it; to be free with Zaheer and Ming-Hua and Ghazan—Zaheer at least still managing to work to further the Red Lotus’s goals by collaborating with Aiwei to lead the already-sympathetic Suyin Beifong around to their way of thinking while they rebuilt the Earth Kingdom—was amazing enough. When combined with the fact that they had found a city that welcomed them, that conformed closer to their ideals than she had thought she would see in her lifetime, that she could actually envision living in… raising their children in… that had been the most unrealistic of her fantasies, buried hundreds of feet below the North Pole.

The discomfort of actually being pregnant could hardly compare, when she took into account what that discomfort _meant_. A child. _Her_ child, hers and Zaheer’s, to be born into comfort and security and love. Protected, but free. There would be no warlord able to murder their child’s family and steal it away to make it a weapon, no bandits who would dare choose Zaofu as a target and leave nothing but death and destruction in their wake.

One day, they would make that true for all children, but just for now—reaching down to entwine her fingers with Zaheer’s as he hummed sympathetically from the ground—she allowed herself to be selfish and glad that she didn’t have to wait for it to be true for hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this in April, but I thought it was pretty info-dumpy and got bored. It is still totally info-dumpy, but it has its cute bits.


End file.
